Tag: grant award

A close-up picture of petri dishes containing a light yellow film of microbes.

Rebecca received an undergraduate research award!

Sue IshaqLeave a comment

Rebecca French, an undergraduate researcher in Animal and Veterinary Science, is beginning her time in the Ishaq Lab with an auspicious start: she has been awarded a 2021 research award from the J. Franklin Witter Undergraduate Research Endowment Fund! The fund supports AVS undergraduate student involvement in faculty supervised research which involves the J. Franklin Witter Teaching & Research Center.

Rebecca’s project will involve zoonotic disease tracking in rodent populations that live near farms/human development versus those which live in more natural areas, and will take place at the Witter farm and a paired natural ecosystem. Her project is part of a larger collaboration between myself and a team of researchers, which was recently funded by the University of Maine, but which has not yet been announced (details soon).

Rebecca formally joined my research lab in February of this year, but I have had the pleasure of teaching her in my data analysis class since January, which will be a handy skillset later in the project. She also learn and perform microbial culturing, qPCR, Sanger sequencing, and even some animal trapping, handling, and identification; mammal physiology data collection and analysis.

Rebecca French

Undergraduate Researcher, Animal and Veterinary Sciences

Rebecca is an animal and veterinary science student with a concentration in pre-veterinary medicine. She joined the Ishaq lab team in 2021 as a part of her capstone project, which is focused on flying squirrels and mice that are carrying zoonotic pathogens into Maine.

A visit from Bozeman

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Last year, one of my former research groups at Montana State University was awarded a USDA NIFA Foundational program grant, and I am a sub-award PI on that grant.  We’ll be working together to investigate the effect of diversified farming systems – such as those that use cover crops, rotations, or integrate livestock grazing into field management – on crop production and soil bacterial communities: “Diversifying cropping systems through cover crops and targeted grazing: impacts on plant-microbe-insect interactions, yield and economic returns.”

The first soil samples were collected in Montana this summer, and I have been processing them for the past few weeks. I am using the opportunity to train a master’s student on microbiology and molecular genetics lab work. 

  • Montana field soil.
  • Prepped for DNA extraction.

Tindall Ouverson started this fall as a master’s student at MSU, working with Fabian Menalled and Tim Seipel in Bozeman, MT.  She’s an environmental and soil scientist, and this is her first time working with microbes.  She was here in Eugene for just a few days to learn everything needed for sequencing: DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction, gel electrophoresis and visualization, DNA cleanup using magnetic beads, quantification, and pooling.  Despite not having experience in microbiology or molecular biology, Tindall showed a real aptitude and picked up the techniques faster than I expected!

  • Gel electrophoresis: using electricity to move DNA.
  • DNA is negatively-charged, it will move towards a positive cathode.
  • The speed of DNA is related to how large it is.
  • Once the DNA has moved through the gel, we can see it using UV light.
  • Each band represents a lot of DNA of a certain size, that all traveled at a certain pace through the gel.

Once the sequences are generated, I’ll be (remotely) training Tindall on DNA sequence analysis.  I’ll also be serving as one of her thesis committee members! Tindall will be the first of (hopefully) many cross-trained graduate students between myself and collaborators at MSU.

USDA AFRI NIFA Agricultural Production Systems grant awarded to Menalled et al.

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In 2016, I was a post-doc in the Menalled Lab, which studies plant and weed ecology in the context of agricultural production and sustainability.  There, I assessed soil bacterial communities under different farming management practices and climate scenarios.  I also helped to develop a grant proposal, which was just accepted by the USDA AFRI NIFA Agricultural Production Systems!  Leading this project is Dr. Fabian Menalled (as Principal Investigator, or PI), along with a number of other PIs; Dr. Amy Trowbridge, Dr. David Weaver, Dr. Tim Seipel, Dr. Maryse Bourgault, and Dr. Carl Yeoman, and collaborators Dr. Darrin Boss, Dr. Kate Fuller, Dr. Ylva Lekberg, and myself as a subaward PI.  I will again be providing microbial community analysis for this project, and collectively the project investigators will bring expertise in plant ecology, agronomy, economics, soil and plant chemistry, microbial ecology, agroecosystems, and more.

This research and extension project focuses on the needs of dryland agricultural stakeholders and it was designed in close collaboration with the NARC Advisory Board. While I was only able to attend one meeting, other team members regularly meet with Montana producers to discuss current issues and identify locally-sourced needs for agricultural research.  During this project, we will continue to meet with the NARC Advisory Board to share our results, evaluate implications, and better serve the producer community.

Diversifying cropping systems through cover crops and targeted grazing: impacts on plant-microbe-insect interactions, yield and economic returns.

Project summary

The semi-arid section of the Northern Great Plains is one of the
largest expanses of small grain agriculture and low-intensity livestock
production. However, extreme landscape simplification, excessive reliance on
off-farms inputs, and warmer and drier conditions hinder its agricultural
sustainability. This project evaluates the potential of diversifying this region
through the integration of cover crops and targeted grazing. We will complement
field and greenhouse studies to appraise the impact of system diversity,
temperature, and precipitation on key multi-trophic interactions, yields, and
economic outputs. Specifically, we will 1) Assess ecological drivers as well as
agronomic and economic consequences of integrating cover crops and livestock
grazing in semi-arid systems, 2) Evaluate how climate variability modify the
impacts of cover crops and livestock grazing on agricultural outputs. Specifically,
we will 2.1) Compare the effect of increased temperature and reduced moisture
on agronomic and economic performance of simplified and diversified systems,
2.2.) Assess the impact of climate and system diversity on associated biodiversity
(weeds, insect, and soil microbial communities) and above- and belowground
volatile organic (VOC) compound emissions, and 2.3) Evaluate how changes in
microbially induced VOCs influence multitrophic plant-insect interactions.

Objectives

  1. Assess key ecological drivers as well as agronomic and economic consequences of integrating cover crops and livestock grazing in semi-arid production systems
    • Compare the agronomic and economic performance of simplified and diversified systems
    • Assess the impact of cover crops and livestock grazing on the associated biodiversity (weeds, insects, and the soil microbiota)
  2. Evaluate how climate conditions modify the impacts of cover crops and livestock grazing on semi-arid production systems
    • Compare the effect of temperature and soil moisture on agronomic and economic performance of simplified and diversified systems
    • Assess the impact of climate and system diversity on associated biodiversity and above- and belowground volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions
    • Evaluate how changes in VOCs emissions influence important multitrophic interactions such as resistance to wheat stem sawfly and natural enemy host location cues
  3. Integrate the knowledge generated into an outreach program aimed at improving producers’ adoption of sustainable diversified crop-livestock systems